This invention relates to an apparatus and system for semi-automatically teeing-up golf balls for practice purposes. With the increasing popularity of golf, practice facilities are in rising demand and those commercial driving ranges having the most efficiently operated modern equipment will prevail in the market.
A basic ingredient in improving one's golfing skill is the analytical, repetitious use of various clubs, stances, and hand grips in practice. The use of commonly available practice equipment at typical driving ranges, however, at least partially defeats this type of practice. That is, state-of-the-art facilities require the golfer to tee-up his golf balls manually. This means that after every shot, the golfer is forced to bend over, remove his hand from his club grip, reposition his feet, remove the ball from a holding container and place it manually upon a tee.
Not only does this manual method require release of the club and variance of one's stance, with concommitant inability to duplicate these parameters in the ensuing shot, but it can prove arduous for older golfers and those with physical handicaps. It also obviously destroys any tempo which the golfer might wish to develop in his practice swings.
With the apparatus of the present invention, the golfer can hit more than 100 balls off a tee without once bending over, changing his stance, or his grip. With it, the golfer can make minute adjustments in grip or stance and study the effects thereof upon ball trajectory.
There have been numerous attempts in the prior art for providing automatic or mechanically-assisted golf ball teeing devices. As evidenced by the reluctance of the proprietors of commercial driving ranges to employ these inventions, however, it is clear that the prior art systems have not been accepted for a variety of reasons including undue complexity, unmerited cost, and difficulty in installation. The durable, simple and inexpensively fabricated present invention, on the other hand, is directly adaptable to the equipment presently installed in commercial driving ranges and requires only minimal expense in adaptation and installation procedures.
Some of the prior art systems have attempted to address some of the individual problems solved by the present invention. None, however, has even contemplated the need for the overall combination presented. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,360,204 to Karr teaches a reservoir and cylinder for holding golf balls in a teeing machine. In Karr, a spiral-shaped open-track is provided with a given slope to feed balls into a rather complicated electrically-operated teeing device. The Karr open-track reservoir system, however, which is representative of the prior art, is susceptible to jamming and permits ball dislodgement. Another open-track ball supply system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,996 to Chang.
Another example of a prior art teeing device is U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,883 to Hogeberg. In a system of electrically controlled circuitry, Hogeberg uses negative air pressure or vacuum to force a golf ball to adhere to a tee. The Hogeberg device and those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,051,253 and 3,378,263 to Goehler, et al. and Turnau, et al., respectively, are typical of the complicated valve controlled pneumatic systems utilized in the prior art.
The prior art, in its complexity and susceptibility to operational difficulties, illustrates why there has not been in the past a large market for semi-automatic golf teeing systems.
In contradistinction to the prior art systems, the present invention comprises a simple apparatus, having only two moving components, which cheaply and efficiently stores and dispenses more than a hundred golf balls. It selectively delivers balls to a normally retracted tee means which automatically lifts upon demand to a desired tee height. The system may be installed within hours in private facilities or in commercial driving ranges and the cost of the very low positive air pressure supply which lifts the tee means amounts to only that of running a motor for a fan having the capacity of a common household vacuum cleaner.